Economy

Native and long-time Washingtonians see presidential inaugurations every four years, and, for them, they're pretty run-of-the-mill, regardless of one's party affiliation. This is especially true when they're the second go-around for a given president. Washington proper is heavily liberal Democrat, and the outlying suburbs are so too, to a lesser degree, but still, enthusiasm for a presidential…

During PBS’ coverage of the 2013 Inauguration, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Gwen Ifill, and Yale University’s Beverly Gage seemed to have forgotten what the definition of liberal is within the context of Obama’s second inaugural address.  In fact, Gage said that this wasn’t an “endorsement of collective liberalism,” and Shields called it more “humanitarian.”  The non-taxpayer subsidized…

For four years (and really going back further when you consider former President George W. Bush's halting attempt to reform Social Security in the middle of last decade), Barack Obama and his party have paid lip service at best to the idea of entitlement reform while refusing to provide any specifics about what they would do to fix Social Security and Medicare, both of which are unsustainable…

At his January 14 press conference, in response to a question from Major Garrett of CBS News and the National Journal about raising the federal government's debt limit, currently at $16.394 trillion, President Barack Obama said: "I’m not going to have a monthly or every-three-months conversation about whether or not we pay our bills." On Wednesday, a Fox News dispatch to which the Associated…

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch had some harsh words Monday for the current White House resident. Tweeting during the inauguration, Welch wrote, "[A]ppears Pres. Obama comfortable with high unemployment and huge deficits":

As Barack Obama enters his second term, his inaugural address delivered today, showed an undeniably strong shift to the left.  The mentions of climate change and gay rights were much more overt, and was music to the ears of liberal media cheerleaders. One such commenter, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, seized on the occasion to hail the president for noticing that we’re on the “frontier of climate…

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel made some statements about America's role in the world on Sunday's Meet the Press that are guaranteed to raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. "It’s greatly diminished. I think the Chinese model is one that appeals more and more in the developing world" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Here are two things the major liberal media outlets aren't telling you. While guns have dominated the national political dialogue, the clock is ticking on Obama’s budget, and he’s already admitted he will yet again be late, missing the Feb. 4 deadline mandated by federal law.  What's more, for a president who originally campaigned on continuing to create jobs and economic growth for the…

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday marvelously exposed NPR's Nina Totenberg as one of President Obama's shills in the media. When Totenberg - appearing on PBS's Inside Washington - tried to make excuses for why Obama is totally in favor of raising the debt ceiling today despite having voted against doing so when he was a senator, Krauthammer scolded, "Don't cover for him" (…

In his syndicated column, Jonah Goldberg takes to task many of the people who claim to be “fiscally conservative” but in truth are anything but. While there are people who actually are fiscally conservative and socially moderate or liberal, Goldberg makes the point that many liberals try to describe themselves in this way, even though they really do not have any conservative beliefs at all:

NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno took a fiscal poke at President Obama Thursday. After mentioning that it was Michelle Obama’s birthday, and that she told reporters that she wanted “a nice gift from Barack, but nothing extravagant,” Leno quipped, “Oh, don't worry. Obama is very responsible when he's spending his own money. Don't have worry about that. No problem there” (video follows with…

None of the three major wire services covering today's report from the Department of Labor on initial unemployment claims is reporting the major news: For the first time in a long while, actual claims filed during the most recent week ended January 12 were almost 6 percent higher than the number filed during last year's comparable week, an indication that the current employment market may be…

Paul Krugman vs. Jon Stewart. The New York Times columnist and economist put his utter lack of humor on display in a Saturday afternoon blog post in which he attacked as lazy and unprofessional the host of the Daily Show. Stewart's sin? Daring to mock the trillion-dollar platinum coin as a solution to the debt ceiling crisis. Here's Krugman on "Lazy Jon Stewart": Oh, dear. Jon Stewart took on…

New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse celebrates Occupy Wall Street ideas like the "Robin Hood tax" in his reporting, so it's no surprise his Sunday Review "news analysis," "Productivity Climbs, But Wages Stagnate," pushed unvarnished left-wing ideas from economists who want a much higher minimum wage, strengthening unions, and higher taxes (in Greenhouse's euphemism, "a more…